Community Guidelines

Introduction

The Integrators Community (subsequently referred to as “Integral Productivity Community" or “Integrators Community”) is a private self- and community actualization-centered community in which members are expected to have well-informed, inclusive, and emotionally intelligent conversations about actualization through personal development, productivity, and automation.

We expect that participants will strive to behave kindly, consensually, patiently, and welcomingly to one another whether in person or online.

Privacy Policy

Please read the entire Integral Productivity Privacy Policy for a complete understanding of our approach to privacy online. Below is the excerpted "Member Obligations" section, which delineates our expectations for Integral Productivity community members.

By accessing Integral Productivity's membership management or community platforms or attending Integral events, you agree to the following:

• You will not share any creative content, including without limitation, original posts, comments, art, photographs, direct messages, or recordings of Integral Productivity Community members or participants without their express permission.

• You will not share access to membership-restricted or payment-restricted events produced by Integral Productivity or our subsidiaries or affiliates without limitation with anyone who does not have permission to access the event.

• You will not share access to Integral Productivity open events in any public forums or event calendars without the express permission of Integral Productivity.

• You will not share details, including without limitation verbal descriptions, written descriptions, photographs, or recordings, about Integral Productivity members’ activities at our events without their explicit permission.

• You will not engage in any image, video, or audio capture of Integral Productivity events or the contents of our member platforms without the express permission of Integral Productivity and all parties being recorded.

• You will not share Integral Productivity members' identities with nonmembers, except nonmember attendees of commonly attended events, without explicit permission from relevant parties.

Violating these boundaries could lead to sanctions up to and including suspension or permanent removal from our online forums, community platforms, and email lists, revocation of membership without refund, termination of services without refund, forfeit of license to products, and/or suspension or permanent ban from attending Integral Productivity events.

Values, beliefs, and practices

Members of the Integral Productivity Community share some common values about freedom, connection, inclusion, and responsibility in self- and community-actualization work.

As part of these efforts, sensitive topics arise in discussion, including physical and mental health and wellness experiences and expectations, various forms of trauma, medical issues and care, and gender and sexual expression.

As necessary to support our mission, we commit to citing, sharing, and reinforcing medically accurate information derived from consensus-based scientific knowledge about human biology, neurodiversity, and sex to the best of our knowledge and ability. We also commit to sharing sources of the information.

We believe that biological sex is not the same as gender and that both exist on a spectrum; healing our identity with respect to these is commonly part of the actualization journey.

We believe that forms of neurodivergence—autism, ADHD, giftedness, et al—are legitimate experiences that also exist on a spectrum. Some of these may present as disabilities or demanding additional support, yet they shouldn’t be pathologized or be in demand of “cures.”

We believe that many people are oppressed based on their identities. We believe we should do our best not to replicate or promote oppressive dynamics in our community, and we should be open to feedback about how things we might have done or said might have impacted someone else.

We may not always agree with one another. Our common beliefs may not always lead us to the same conclusions. We may not always say something correctly, we may not always get it right -- and all these things are ok! They're expected. Mistakes are part of being human. That's why as a community, we "call people in" instead of "calling people out." We do our best to lead critiques with inquiry and curiosity. We attempt to take the shame out of our conversations with one another because, at the end of the day, we're most invested in our mutual growth, not in the superiority of our moral positions.

Messaging Guidelines

The Integrators Community and Circle platform isn't a dating app like Bumble or Tinder or OKCupid. It's a community rooted in shared principles, common values, and mutual learning. Through our experience with other communities and spaces, we've learned that when women and femmes of any gender feel that they're being deluged with unsolicited messages from people with whom they don't share deep social context or familiarity, the community can feel much less welcoming and safe.

At the end of the day, we want every Integral Productivity member to feel welcomed as a participant in this community and not targeted because of what folks think they can get from them. At the same time, we want mutual interest and pre-existing relationships to flourish with relative ease. Finally, we want deepening social connection to be explicitly mutually agreed upon and not assumed based on social convention (e.g., having a conversation in a group about a shared experience or trauma doesn't necessarily mean that they want ongoing contact or follow-up.) Making the implicit explicit supports clarity and helps break social conventions informed by societal power imbalances.

We're introducing these direct messaging (DM) guidelines to strike this balance. The policy is as follows:

1. Communicating outreach preferences and boundaries
   1. 1. Green / Yellow / Red engagement indicators
      Integral Productivity members may indicate their openness to receiving direct messages on the Integral Productivity community platform by adding the color code corresponding to their preference to their profile name. e.g., Jane Doe | she | G
   2. Green (or G): Indicates openness to receiving direct messages from anyone on the platform unless a boundary has otherwise been drawn. A green status shouldn't be read to mean that direct messages are specifically desired. Rather, it only indicates that the person has the capacity to set a boundary (either explicitly or indirectly, e.g., by ignoring someone) in the moment.
   3. Yellow (or Y): Indicates a preference for affirmative consent before receiving direct messages from people whose profiles they don't follow using the platform's follow function. Asking can be done in a public post comment thread, group chat (e.g., for attendees of common events in the Circle app or, if enabled by network administrators, the Integral Productivity community chat feature), or in person. If no color preference is indicated, yellow is the default boundary level.
   4. Red (or R): Indicates a preference to receive no direct messages or requests for direct messages from anyone in Integral Productivity Community.
2. Supplemental indications
   1. Any member can use their screen name to indicate their specific DM preferences (e.g., "Joe Smith |he|DMs only from close friends, please")
   2. Supplemental indications supersede the boundary color categories.
   3. If you message someone for conversation because they've indicated that their DMs are open (i.e., their status is "green") but you don't have deep social context with one another, you're allowed a single follow-up message if they don't reply to your message. The message must be tonally appropriate, i.e., it should in no way imply that the message recipient has any obligation to reply to you.
   4. If you message someone for conversation because they've indicated that their DMs are open to you (i.e., their status is yellow or red, but they follow your profile), you're allowed up to three follow-up messages if they don't reply to your message. The message must be tonally appropriate, i.e., it should in no way imply that the message recipient has any obligation to reply to you.
   5. If an Integral Productivity Community member sets a boundary with you regarding messaging for any reason, you are not allowed to message them on our community platform outside of those boundaries. Repeated messages on other platforms after a boundary has been drawn may be considered harassment and could be cause for removal from Integral Productivity sites.
   6. No sexually explicit conversation or sharing of sexual images should be entered into on this platform.
   7. Any Integral Productivity Community member may request to a moderator that another member is flagged or DM privileges deactivated. When flagged, a community member would then have their content reviewed by a moderator before posting. When DM privileges are deactivated for a member, that person can not make any DMs except to admins, but doesn't eliminate their content from the feed. See Circle Community [How to block a member of the community?](https://community.circle.so/c/ask-the-community/blocking-a-member-of-the-community) for more info.Harassment and limits on follow-up messages
3. Reporting
   
   Violations of this policy can be reported using the [Integral Productivity Incident Reporting Form](https://bit.ly/integralproductivityincidentreport).
4. Exemptions to this policy
   
   Integral Productivity staff, key volunteers, and moderators are allowed to reach out to anyone on the community platform at any time for any reason related to Integral Productivity business (e.g. volunteer coordination and management, content moderation, etc.). Conversely, Integral Productivity Community members may always contact staff, key volunteers and moderators about Integral Productivity business.

Posting Guidelines

Posting process

Integral Productivity's community platform, currently hosted on Circle.so, is for current Integral Productivity community members and customers only. If you're a current member and don't yet have access to the community platform, please send a message to organizers at info@integralproductivity.com.

Circle has moderation features; however, members are expected to post in a manner consistent with the guidelines explained below. Occasionally, a moderator may contact you about a post and ask you to make edits to clarify it or bring it more aligned with our standards. This is from a spirit of care, not perfectionism. You can turn down moderator guidance at your discretion, but your post may be deleted. You may also request this kind of help anytime from moderators before posting by emailing info@integralproductivity.com.

Currently, the moderator is . You can reach moderators via direct message in Circle community platform. You can also reach them by tagging them in posts or by emailing info@integralproductivity.com.

The following are our four key guidelines. Moderators reserve the right to delete any post that doesn't sufficiently abide by these guidelines. Violation of these guidelines could lead to outcomes including verbal warnings, mediation, suspension, limitation of posting privileges, or removal from the group.

1. Be topical.

In general, posts should have something to do with self- and community-actualization or the Integral Productivity community. We encourage people to use the group to solicit advice, reflection, celebration, or support in their experience. However, we discourage posts that might blame or shame people. Integral Productivity is not a platform for the airing of interpersonal grievances.

We encourage people to connect about common interests, but please don't cruise for intimate engagement except in discussion threads where moderators have explicitly said this is acceptable. This can sometimes be a fine line -- feel welcome to check in with moderators if you have any questions.

We also encourage posts that deepen social connection. We communicate deeply personal things to each other, build things together, go to events together, let one another know about employment opportunities, and more. Making these sorts of invitations helps to bind us together as a community.

Talking about substance use is permitted; soliciting the sale or trade of illicit substances is not.

Promotional posts will be accepted on a case-by-case basis. We're open to folks sharing services they're offering, particularly if they're about actualization. Promotional posts should not feel spammy and are best received when the poster has an active, ongoing, and mutual relationship with the wider Integral Productivity community.

When you share a piece of content, particularly articles or opinion pieces, don't just post it or say that it's interesting--say why you think it's relevant to Integral Productivity, what questions you think it surfaces that you feel are important to discuss, or how it made you feel. This is especially true for content that may require specific knowledge or be divisive, upsetting, or inspire lots of critique.

2. Be inclusive.

We come from a huge range of backgrounds. We grew up in different home cultures. We learned to think and speak about the world in fairly different ways. We all had wildly divergent life experiences before we converged in Integral Productivity.

We strive to be an inclusive community. For us, that means we want people with a wide range of identities and cultural backgrounds to feel like they have just as much of a stake in this community as anyone else does, especially people who are part of socially disadvantaged or marginalized groups.

We ask that members not disparage other people's core social identities (race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, physical appearance, or physical, intellectual, or emotional ability.)

Naming that certain groups benefit from, participate in, and are responsible for certain kinds of oppression is not the same as disparagement. It's not wrong to note that men are the primary beneficiaries of patriarchy/sexism, that white folks are the primary beneficiaries of racism/white supremacy, that neurotypical people are the primary beneficiaries of education/mental care/office environments, that heterosexual people are the primary beneficiaries of homophobia, et cetera.

Sometimes, people may say things that push our buttons or that go against community standards. When that happens, we ask that you "call people in" instead of "calling them out." What's the difference?

From Calling IN: A Less Disposable Way of Holding Each Other Accountable by Ngọc Loan Trần:

I picture 'calling in' as a practice of pulling folks back in who have strayed from us. It means extending to ourselves the reality that we will and do fuck up, we stray and there will always be a chance for us to return. Calling in as a practice of loving each other enough to allow each other to make mistakes; a practice of loving ourselves enough to know that what we're trying to do here is a radical unlearning of everything we have been configured to believe is normal. And yes, we have been configured to believe it's normal to punish each other and ourselves without a way to reconcile hurt.... But when we shut each other out we make clubs of people who are right and clubs of people who are wrong as if we are not more complex than that, as if we are all-knowing, as if we are perfect. We need to do better for each other. We have to let go of treating each other like not knowing, making mistakes, and saying the wrong thing make it impossible for us to ever do the right things. And we have to remind ourselves that we once didn't know.

This doesn't mean that people aren't allowed to feel or express anger or hurt. It's that we want people who feel angry or hurt to be gentle with themselves and with others. If you feel angry or hurt about a post and don't know if you can talk about it without calling people out, that's a pretty good sign that it might be time to reach out to a moderator.

Use people's appropriate pronouns when referring to them. If you're not sure, just ask! If you mess up, apologize, correct yourself, and move on.

If administrators lose faith that you can contribute to the group in constructive, non-inflammatory, non-oppressive ways, then your ability to participate in Integral Productivity online forums may be limited or revoked.

3. Be kind.

In Integral Productivity, we aim to show great care and kindness to one another. We don't interact with each other like faceless trolls in an online comment section--we speak to each other assuming that we're all trying our very best, given our emotional resources and circumstances, to be excellent to one another while taking care of ourselves. Here's how we operationalize that:

• Get out of a debate mindset. The devil doesn't need an advocate. Integral Productivity is not a debating club. We're a place for dialogue. Dialogue is collaborative: two or more sides work together toward common understanding. Debate, on the other hand, is oppositional: two sides oppose each other and attempt to prove each other wrong. Check out this important resource for more of the key differences between dialogue and debate: United States Insitute of Peace Comparison of Dialogue and Debate

• Be curious. Before making assumptions or accusations about what someone intended, ask questions.

• Back off. Try not to participate in conversational dogpiles -- if a point has been made more than once in a contentious conversation, no need to make it again. If multiple people name that advocating for a particular idea leads them to feel less safe in conversation (or community) with you, back off.

• Use trigger warnings for posts dealing with sexual violence or abuse. The appropriate format is: "Trigger Warning - [Subject Matter Description] followed by 5 periods, each on separate lines, followed by the content. This gives people who may be triggered by such content the ability to skip it in their timelines.

• Don't call people out in posts. We often share vulnerably about our challenges navigating various aspects of our lives or even challenges in specific relationships. You can talk about your experience, you can talk about specific behaviors or dynamics, and you can talk about your feelings. Please do not use the group as a platform for calling out or shaming people in our relational lives. If someone in the community is behaving abusively, violently, or nonconsensually, report it by using our Incident Reporting form.

4. Be accountable.

Sometimes we hurt people without knowing it. If we're lucky, they'll let us know that we've hurt them. That is not a time to question whether someone should be feeling hurt. Listen carefully to what someone is saying. Ask questions if you don't understand, but make sure they're questions that further your understanding, not challenge the hurt person to justify their hurt. Admit that you've had an impact, even if it's not one that you intended. Take responsibility for the part you own. Put yourself in other people's shoes. Apologize to the appropriate parties. Say what you'll do to avoid making the same mistake. Don't make holding you accountable someone else's responsibility unless they've explicitly signed up for that.

Keep your relationships in the community clean. Seek mediation resources or ask for support/witnessing in clearing conversations if needed.

Please don't delete your posts or comments without permission from the Moderation Team.

If you've been told that you've caused harm in some way, the Moderation Team will do our best to explain why. However, it is your responsibility to remain curious and/or do the research to get a deeper view on how others might see the issue at hand.

Consumption Guidelines

If you're new to Integral Productivity and our community, check out all the visible Spaces to ensure you're engaged in the conversations and seeing the content you most want here. And be sure to customize your notification settings to ensure you're not getting deluged by email or phone notifications by clicking the notifications bell and then the gear icon.

Author’s note: With great respect and appreciation, these community guidelines have been adapted from the Bonobo Network Community Guidelines for the Integral Productivity Network and Integrators Community.